What happens when life doesn’t just challenge you—but flattens you? When it strips you raw, pulling at every ounce of your strength until there’s nothing left but the question: How much more can I take?

I know. Because I lived it.

From 2016 to 2021, I walked through a fire so relentless it nearly burned me to the ground. I call it my hurricane season—a time when I was expected to hold everything together while I was quietly unraveling. I was a caregiver, a mother, a daughter, a partner, an employee, a business owner, a fighter. But I was also exhausted, grieving, and drowning under the weight of it all.

And yet, here I stand—not just as someone who survived, but as someone who transmuted pain into power.

The Breaking: Lying on the Kitchen Floor, Begging for Mercy

There’s a moment I will never forget. I was lying on my kitchen floor—motionless, emptied, shattered. My father was gone. My mother was starting cancer treatment. My grandparents needed care. My son’s diabetes was brittle, and his symptoms were unpredictable and terrifying. I had lost my job and my first dog. I was commuting endlessly to care for my grandparents. And inside? I was barely functioning.

Drinking too much. Eating too much—or not at all. I wasn’t sleeping. I was completely, utterly alone.

And in that stillness, I called out to Spirit, to anything that could hear me:
"I can't do this anymore. Help me. Help me, please."

It wasn’t a request. It was surrender.

The kind of surrender that comes when you have no fight left—only the hope that something greater than yourself will carry you for a little while.

The Becoming: A Hard-Fought Surrender

This wasn’t the first time I had been forced to let go.

Months before, my father was in the hospital after his bone marrow transplant, his body swollen, his voice mostly gone. We were losing him. The doctors gave us options, but none of them felt like life—just extensions of suffering.

I was gripping onto him as tightly as I could, unwilling to make the impossible choice: hospice.

Then, The Universe Has Your Back by Gabby Bernstein landed in my inbox. I listened to it in stolen moments—on the road between the hospital and home, my mind fractured by exhaustion. And when I reached the last pages, something inside me broke open.

I trusted.

I let go.

That afternoon, we made the decision together. My Dad got to say goodbye in his own way, in his own time. And I learned the hardest lesson of all: sometimes, the most profound act of love is release.

The Becoming Again: What the Hurricane Left Behind

Here’s what no one tells you about surviving impossible seasons: you don’t come out the same.

After years of caregiving, loss, and barely surviving, I emerged transformed.

I learned that holding the duality of life—the grief and the joy, the pain, and the pride—isn’t just possible; it’s necessary. Healing isn’t about erasing the past. It’s about learning to hold it in a way that no longer drowns you.

I realized that stress management isn’t just about bubble baths and deep breaths—it’s about learning to put down what isn’t yours to carry. It’s about forgiveness—of yourself, of others, of the things that will never be fair.

It’s about releasing control, not because you don’t care, but because gripping so tightly is what keeps you sick, exhausted, and disconnected from yourself.

And most importantly, I learned this:

Healing is not a destination. It is a way of moving through life.

This is For You, Too

I share this because I know I’m not the only one.

I know what it means to be the one who holds it all together, even when you're crumbling inside.

I know what it’s like to feel lost in cycles of stress, self-abandonment, and survival mode.

I know what it feels like to carry pain so heavy it warps your sense of self.

But I also know that there is another side.

I know that you can hold the pain and the joy together and still move forward.
I know that you can trust yourself so deeply that surrender stops feeling like giving up—and starts feeling like freedom.
I know that even in your worst season, you are becoming something new.

So Let Me Ask You…

What are you gripping onto so tightly that it’s keeping you stuck?
Where can you offer yourself more grace, more surrender, more trust?
What would it look like to start healing—not by doing more, but by letting go?

Here’s Your Next Step

1️⃣ Pause & Reflect – Write down what you’re carrying that no longer serves you. Say it out loud. Let yourself see it.

2️⃣ Create Your Safe Space – Find the practice, person, or place that makes you feel safe enough to soften. It could be journaling, movement, Reiki, nature, or even sitting silently.

3️⃣ Practice the Release – Choose one thing to surrender today. Maybe it’s a grudge. Perhaps it’s guilt. Maybe it’s the pressure to be everything to everyone.

This is my story. This is my hurricane season. And this is my invitation to you:

Let go. Trust yourself. And when you’re ready—become again.

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